


Set Fire to the Rain

by hellorflying



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Choices, F/M, Heartbreak, Love, Mistakes, Rain, Rainy Seattle, Season 2, Sharing an umbrella
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:42:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29108745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellorflying/pseuds/hellorflying
Summary: Set in season 2 after Derek chose to stay with Addison. Both Derek and Meredith are struggling with his decision and Derek has to realize that he might have made a huge mistake.
Relationships: Meredith Grey/Derek Shepherd
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	Set Fire to the Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlackCanary0001](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCanary0001/gifts).



> Hey! I am new to this fandom :) I only started watching Grey's Anatomy a few weeks ago and I am currently watching season 9. This oneshot is set in season 2, about a few days/weeks after Derek chose Addison over Meredith.  
> The prompt for this oneshot was "sharing an umbrella". My friend @BlackCanary0001 and I are currently trying to write a short story every week, so you should definitely check out her stories too! But now, have fun reading :)

Life is made up of choices. According to scientists we make about 35.000 choices each day. Crazy, isn't it? Most of them happen unconsciously, without us even fully noticing. Some choices are little, some are huge and most lay somewhere in between, but what they all have in common is that they have consequences. And as surgeons, we not only have to deal with a particular great amount of decisions, we also have to deal with the fact that the consequences can mean so much as life or death for our patients. And most of the time, these decisions have to be made in the flicker of a second. Talk about pressure, right?

...

When Meredith Grey pushed open the hospital doors a little harsher than necessary, the cold Seattle rain greeted her. Wrapping her arms a little tighter around her own body to keep the mixture of coldness and dampness from creeping up her spine, she stepped out from under the projecting roof and into the rain. Her feet couldn't possibly carry her fast enough to keep her clothes from being dripping wet by the time she would reach her car. Soon enough she couldn't even tell anymore whether the wetness on her cheeks came from the rain or from the silent tears she so didn't wanted to be shedding.

"Meredith! Meredith!"

She slowed down a little upon hearing her name, feeling the excruciating urge to just turn around, to throw all her morals, all her anger and all her frustration overboard and to simply let him be there for her. But she couldn't. The world just didn't work that way. Because he chose his wife. As much as she wanted him close to her in every possible way right now, she wanted to ignore everything related to him just as much. Because he didn't chose her. Picking up her pace again, she tried to bury her head a little more in between her shoulders to keep the cold rain from reaching her sensitive skin.

"Meredith!"

His voice was louder and clearer this time and before her mind could fully grasp what that meant, he had already caught up with her, offering her some sort of relief from the coldness of Seattle's autumn by holding up a colorful umbrella above her head. But Meredith simply continued making her way to her car, barely even acknowledging him with a brief glance. Not that she needed to anyway. She didn't owe him a thing.

It was only when she felt his warm hand on her arm that she came to an abrupt halt. It barely even qualified as a proper touch, with his hand resting lightly on her wrist, but it was enough for her to feel the radiant warmth coming from his hand even through her coat. Two seconds, maybe three. A shiver ran down her spine, as the warmth slowly spread in her whole body. Then, suddenly, she pulled her arm away in a haste, almost as if his touch was burning her alive.

"What do you want, Derek?" she snapped.

The dark-haired surgeon opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out. He seemed somewhat taken aback by her sudden harshness.

"Are you okay?" he asked finally, despite knowing better.

"Seriously, Derek? Seriously?" she asked, tilting her head as if trying to assess if he was actually being serious right now. Why he thought he had the right to even ask her that, she didn't know. It wasn't like they were friends or something. It wasn't like they could be friends or something. It wasn't like they could just pretend that the past few months had never happened in the first place.

"I-"

"What do you think, huh? " She interrupted him, eyeing him angrily, as she tried to choke back the tears. "I am great. Just great. My clothes are completely soaked with rain and a patient died on my watch today. On my watch! And you... you-" Her voice broke. "You-" She hit him repeatedly against the chest with her tiny, ineffectual fists, struggling to find the right words, when the first few tears rolled down her cheek.

"Hey, hey," he said quietly and carefully, but effectively grabbed her by the wrists to keep her from hitting him any further, before pulling her into his arms. He could feel her tense up in his arms at first, before she slowly relaxed. Everything else faded away then and for the moment that was okay. Meredith buried her face in his chest, sobbing quietly, as he stroke her back with his hand. "I am sorry." He whispered over and over again.

He pressed a soft kiss on her hair, before he loosened his hold on her a little bit and his eyes briefly met hers. Two seconds, maybe three. Somewhere in the distance there was the faint sound of a wailing ambulance. With the umbrella keeping them from getting even more wet than they already were and the soft sound of the rain hitting the plastic ringing in their ears it was almost as if they were in their own world, in their own little bubble. It was just them. And it was peaceful. At least for the moment.

"Better?"

She nodded softly and wiped away her tears, before releasing him completely from their hug. A cold shiver ran down her spine as the wetness of her clothes seemed to have gotten even worse - or she simply felt it more intensively now. They slowly picked up their pace again then, making their way to her car.

"You know, I walked in on Burke and Christina in the on-call room tonight... those are pictures I will never get out of my head again." Derek broke the comfortable silence and when her cute chuckle filled the air between them, he knew that it had been the right thing to say.

"You really like showing up at the most untimely moments, don't you?" She asked with with a faint smile. "By the way, I wasn't gonna say anything, but that umbrella Derek, really?"

"You know I have a thing for ferryboats." He replied with his characteristic McDreamy grin.

"I do," she whispered, when they arrived at her car.

Meredith opened the door of her car, placed her handbag inside and when she turned back around to say goodbye for the night, their eyes met once again. Two seconds, maybe three. And without thinking it all the way through, he reached out to tuck a wet strain of hair behind her ear. It was one of these tens of thousands of unconscious decisions people make every day. Decisions that are made so fast that we barely even recognize them as decisions. He was somewhat surprised about himself, but funnily enough she didn't seem to be.

"Good night, Derek." she said, a small smile playing around her lips, before she finally got into her car.

He watched as she drove off into Seattle's rainy night. Now standing alone under the colorful umbrella he liked so much, he felt that crushing feeling pushing on his chest, telling him that he had made a mistake. He had made the wrong choice.

"Good night, Meredith," he whispered, after she was long gone.

...

Life is made up of moments, of choices. And as surgeons, we have a lot of decisions to make. Most of them are made in the matter of seconds, because sometimes, that is all we have: seconds. Seconds that can decide whether a patient lives or dies. The problem is that sometimes, we want to believe that whatever we are going to choose is going to work out so badly that we stop listening to our gut, that we stop seeing what is right in front of us. And that is probably the worst mistake we can ever make, because as surgeons, more than in any other job, we have to trust our instincts.

So, what do you do when you didn't listen? What do you do when you didn't see what was happening right before your eyes? Well, most of the time the mistake is irreversible. But sometimes, if we are very lucky and if we can admit our mistake, we may be granted another chance.


End file.
